Pages

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Tap tap - is this thing on? Do people even read nail blogs anymore? I've been so out of the nail polish loop for several years now, I hope that nail blogging community is still alive and well!

Anyways, I've been clearing out my stash for a few years now. My passions in life are now elsewhere. I'm pregnant with a baby boy due this October, so perhaps this last destash is my nesting instincts kicking in. We are clearing out our house to make room for this new little life that will be joining us soon. What I am putting up here today are the very very last of my vintage polishes. Most of the super rare ones are long gone.

I have 3 lots today. One Hard Candy, one Revlon Streetwear, and one of random vintage goodness.

Here are the rules for sale.1. FIRST TO CONTACT ME AT thescholarlynail (at) gmail (dot) com RECEIVES THE LOT.2. SHIPPING IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRICE. I WILL BILL SEPARATELY FOR SHIPPING ONCE I PACK UP YOUR ORDERS. I generally use medium and large flat rate boxes for shipping. The smaller lot may fit into a large flat rate, the larger lots may need two large flat rate or a medium and a large. All polishes will be packed securely with bubble wrap. 3. NO SPLITTING THE LOTS. 4. NO INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING. US ONLY.5. PAYPAL ONLY.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Hey guys and gals! I'm back today with another post, can you believe it?! I know, I know. Anyway, today's post is one that I was supposed to do many moons ago that never happened and I wanted to make good on my promise, so here I am! It is the return of Fug Friday with my friend Rach over at stuff i (s)watched! It's quite fitting that I am posting this today, in fact, because the weather here in Cleveland is pretty fug itself. Cold, grey, wet - definitely not a good start to Memorial Day Weekend. A fug polish for a fug day! And don't forget to check out Rachel's most recent Fug Friday post here: stuff i (s)watched - Fug Friday!

Rach and I decided to do a series of Fug Friday posts after discussing one day how much we loved polish that isn't conventionally good looking. The ugly duckling polishes, one might say. The guideline for our Fug Friday is basically this: does it resemble a bodily secretion? If yes, it makes the Fug Friday cut! There's nothing better than a baby poop brown or puke green polish to start the day off right, am I right? But seriously, I am all for polishes that go beyond the realm of the usual pretty, bright, sparkly, glittery polishes that are all the rage these days. Give me a drab mustard yellow polish over pink sparkles any day.

The vintage lover that I am, I figured why not kill two birds with one stone. Today I present to you Revlon Streetwear Moody. Here's the thing about Moody - it is quite possibly the ugliest polish I have ever laid eyes on in my entire life. It doesn't have that whole ugly-pretty thing going on and not even a face that a mother would love. It's horrendous. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could like this polish. I tried, I really did. I mean, it has this whole 90's grunge vibe going for it so it can't be too bad, right? WRONG. IT'S ALL WRONG.

Moody has a brown sheer base (yes, it's as awful as it sounds) with light blue shimmer. The base is so sheer than it lends a nice yellow cast to the nail. And that's what everyone wants, right? A nice yellow nail! Um, no thank you! Since I've significantly slowed down with the nail blogging these days, my nails actually spend a fair amount of time naked. My nails no longer have that yellow tinge to them that I would get after wearing nail polish all the time. Yes, my nails are white! And this polish makes them look like I have some sort of exotic fungus. Delish. A friend on Twitter once compared this polish to "radioactive bong water" and I couldn't agree more.

I hereby present to you the ugliest polish on Earth, Revlon Streetwear Moody. This is 4 painstaking coats of a truly horrendously formulated polish. It was runny, it never dried and it quite literally, looks like poo. Please forgive the photography skills kiddos, I'm still not back on my nail blogging mojo. Anyways, here you go! Don't blame me if you feel a little queasy afterwards. Consider this your warning!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

HI GUYS!!! Long time no see, eh?! Instead of excuses, I come bearing pictures!! Today I have for you all a manicure I have been wanting to do for awhile, Pure Ice Heartbreaker over Revlon Royal. These two polishes are truly a match made in heaven.

Revlon Royal is a gorgeous deep royal blue jelly in Revlon's Top Dry line. The formula of this polish was thick but relatively easy to work with. If this polish was any thinner, it would have been flood city and as pigmented as this polish is, it would have been a nightmare to do cuticle clean up. I usually prefer my polishes a bit thinner but I was grateful that Royal was as thick as it was. After 2 coats of Royal, I did one coat of Pure Ice Heartbreaker on top, a gorgeous green shimmer. I believe Heartbreaker is still available but last time I saw, the formula had changed and it wasn't nearly as shimmery as it was before and had a milky base. I'm glad to still have a bottle of the original version.

The only disappointment with this manicure was the drying time. As Royal is supposed to be from the quick drying line, I expected a quick drying time. Sounds reasonable, yes? Well, even with taking short breaks between coats and my handy dandy Seche Vite topcoat, I am writing this post a few hours later and I am still able to dent the polish if I try. Not really a fan of that aspect of the polish. But, it looks really fantastic so I suppose I can look past its shortcomings. I mean, if I can wait hours for my Kleancolor Metallics to dry, I can forgive Revlon Royal for a bit of dentiness (NEW WORD ALERT!).

Pictured is two coats of Revlon Royal and one coat of Pure Ice Heartbreaker. As I've digressed from being a regular nail blogger, my nails are a bit misshappen, my cuticles a bit dry and my pictures kind of blurry. But hopefully you guys can look past all that and see how amazeballs this combo is!

Thanks for stopping by today friends! I probably still will not be posting regularly but I will be checking in every once in a while with a new manicure =) I miss you all and hope you all are doing well <3

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Happy Sunday my lovelies! Dana at Polished Claws Up and I are back today with another edition of Retro Sunday Squared. We're bringing out the big guns today folks - VINTAGE GREEN OPI's!! Ahh! So excited!! Don't forget to check out Dana's post, she is showing off one of the polishes we found dusty hunting together this past summer!

Today I will be sharing with you OPI Creme de Menthe, possibly one of the top 3 most rare OPI greens in existence. This one never pops up on eBay and even through my extensive dusty hunting adventures, I have never seen a bottle of this anywhere. Why is this polish so rare? Because it is from 1989! Yes, 1989 which makes this bottle of polish 24 years old! That is almost as old as I am =) This is by far one of the oldest polishes in my stash. But as old as it is, OPI Creme de Menthe is absolutely gorgeous! Creme de Menthe was part of OPI's "X" Collection, and not much is known about this collection. It contained other now-VHTF polishes such as Rainforest, Real Teal and Iridescent Opal.

OPI Creme de Menthe is a mint green with gold shimmer. I have seen many near dupes of Creme de Menthe but none of them were ever quite as vibrant or as shimmery as it. You would think that in the 24 years since this polish has been released, someone would have come out with a viable dupe. I know that Lindsay over at Yacking about Lacquer came up with a dupe of it and it was definitely the closest I have seen. But as far as the big retail brands go, I haven't seen anything close. This is a very special polish.

The formula on this one was kind of meh - it was actually kind of thick for an old non-3-free polish. It was a bit streaky and kind of hard to even out. Nonetheless, it is still gorgeous and I can't begrudge a 24 year old polish its formula. I'll thin it out a bit next time but for now, the formula was workable.

Here's 3 coats of OPI Creme de Menthe. I took a boatload of pictures and couldn't decide which ones I liked the best, so here's a bunch! Enjoy =)

Thanks for stopping by today everyone! Don't forget to check out Dana's post!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Bonsoir mes amis! Just a quick post here this evening to alert you all to a new side project I've been working on, The Scholarly Nail's Wax blog!

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that I have a bit of an affinity for candles. Well, my new blog is going to showcase my adventures in scented wax! If you're interested in candles, tarts or fragrance in general, mosey on over! Or, if you're looking for another hobby to dump all of your hard earned cash in, hey, check it out! Haha.

I will be doing a giveaway over there soon so follow to stay in the loop!

Here's the link! I'd love it if you would take the time to check it out!

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Today Dana and I are back for another edition of Retro Sunday Squared! For those just joining us, Retro Sunday Squared is when Dana over at Polished Claws Up and I share some of our vintage nail polish gems. We have chosen to showcase some of our vintage Maybelline Express Finish polishes on this fine Sunday in January. Vintage Maybellines are some of Dana's and my favorite old school polishes, and for good reason - they are awesome! They had so many fantastic collections, finishes, and colors back in the day. Due to time constraints, we are only going to show one polish each today but I promise they are good ones!

I have to share with you all today Maybelline Electric Apple. Electric Apple is a lovely (albeit frosty) bright apple green polish. I first fell in love with this shade when Kaz over at Pretty Random swatched this for her blog. Her picture of it is much more beautiful so definitely check it out! Anyways, Electric Apple never was released in the US, so not only is it vintage, but it is even more hard to find because it was released in the UK and not here in the States. I ended up finding this on Amazon UK. Oh, the places we will go to find our vintage polishes! This bright, metallic green polish is definitely one of the stand outs in my Maybelline collection. The frostiness lends itself to the metallic finish and I don't mind it at all. I know frost is the devil in the nail polish world, but as I've said before, I have a certain affinity for frosty polishes.

So pictured here is 3 coats of Maybelline Electric Apple in all of its frosty glory! Enjoy =)

Thanks for stopping by today! Don't forget to check out Dana's post over at Polished Claws Up!

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Today Dana and I have for you some vintage holiday Revlon Streetwears! Of course, Revlon Streetwear is one of my all-time favorite vintage brands and I feel very lucky to have quite a few of the holiday ones in my collection. All of the ones that I am going to show you all today are quite rare, and I never thought I would own any of them in my lifetime!

A quick note - my cuticles are absolutely ravaged right now. I have been so busy with school and finals, getting ready for the holidays and then the blog sale this past week that I have just not been caring for them like I should. I have naturally AWFUL cuticles anyways so it's just difficult to keep them up to par in the winter anyways. So be warned, my cuticles are awful this week!

First up is Revlon Streetwear Rudolph. Rudolph is a red glitter in a clear base. Pretty standard, but essential for any Streetwear collector. The formula of Rudolph was pretty tricky. It was thick and gloopy and upon my first coat of it, I realized that there was no way this glitter was going to be opaque. So, on top of that first coat of glitter, I layered a coat of Revlon Streetwear Mrs. Claus, a red jelly from Streetwear's holiday collection as well. The effect of this jelly sandwich was amazing! It looked like China Glaze Ruby Slippers! I layered another coat of Rudolph on top of that and it was perfect. Just gorgeous! I am definitely going to be wearing this combo again before the holidays are over. It just screams Christmas to me!

Next up is Revlon Streetwear Kwanza (yes, that is the way this polish is spelled even though the correct spelling for the holiday is "Kwanzaa"). This is probably one of the rarest Streetwears I own and one of the most unique polishes in my entire stash. Kwanza has a clear base with green square glitter, thin red bar glitter and then a thicker black bar glitter. I don't have any polish with that combination of glitters, nor do I know of any!

I've decided to show you guys Kwanza over two different polishes today to showcase the different types of glitter. First, I've layered it over a pure black to let the red bar and green square glitters shine! But I always wanted to show you all the black bar glitters as well, so Streetwear Mrs. Claus to the rescue again! I layered Kwanza over Mrs. Claus, which helps the green and black glitters stand out, and the red glitters just glow against the darker red background of Mrs. Claus. So fun and festive!

So here's 1 coat of Streetwear Kwanza over Finger Paints Black Expressionism and then 1 coat of Kwanza over Streetwear Mrs. Claus. Enjoy!

Here's all the polishes I used today! From L-R: Streetwear Kwanza, Streetwear Mrs. Claus and Streetwear Rudolph.

~~~~

That's all for today! Hope everyone is having a great December so far!